Landmark Baltimore Camera Repair Shop Closes After 29 Years

In November of 2021, with work picking up again from the COVID lockdowns, I decided to pay a visit to my local camera repair shop and get a few things things back in order.

I took my Nikon 35mm 1.4 AIS and 105mm 1.8 AIS in for service and was inspired to write an article for Petapixel on the history of my experiences at Baltimore Photo-Electronic Service. My article chronicled my coming of age in photography and the importance of Lev Gutman's cluttered little shop that has been supporting my efforts for the last twenty years.

In the article, I wrote "And yet, Baltimore Photo-Electronic Service survived the digital revolution that ended the local labs. It survived the rise of online shopping that ended the local camera stores. And now it appears to have survived COVID-19 that ended numerous small businesses."

Sadly, today I'm here to report that Mr. Gutman has retired and BP-ES is permanently closed.

A few months after my article was published and there was some renewed interest in BP-ES, another member of the Film in Baltimore group posted that Lev told her that he was retiring and closing his shop. When I phoned that familiar old number to get the details, I found that the line had already been disconnected.

Last I visited, Lev gave no indication of these plans. The Russian, as we used to call him, looked as healthy and fit as ever. The shop looked no different than it had for decades. I have no means of contacting Lev to find anything more about this mysterious end of an era, and found no trace of further information online. Likely, it was just time for him to retire. And that is not a bad way to end things after nearly thirty years of greatness.

As a bit of a send-off, I wanted to share a few personal photos that I've taken with the 35mm 1.4 Nikkor that my wife gifted me for Christmas years ago and Lev revived just a couple months before withdrawing his profound talent, knowledge and kindness from the community that he served for so long.

I took these photos using Kodak TMAX 100 in an FM2n that Lev also serviced. They depict some peaceful moments during a sunset sailboat charter that I recently enjoyed with my family in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. They feel a bit fitting to celebrate Lev's retirement and the closure of the best camera repair shop in Baltimore.

I say it all the time and this story is an important reminder. GET YOUR VINTAGE CAMERA GEAR PROFESSIONALLY SERVICED. If it's worth shooting, even if it's worth keeping on a shelf, it's worth paying an experienced professional to bring it back to 100%. With the loss of every skilled repair tech like Mr. Gutman, we creep ever so much closer to the end of film photography as we know it. Sure, new techs will step in and sure we can do some DIY work ourselves. But for the continuation of film photography on any kind of reasonably serious level, we need to keep our local repair shops busy. A standard Clean, Lube and Adjust is so much cheaper than a missed photo op due to neglect of classic equipment.

Let's keep film alive, folks. Support your local repair techs and they will support us.

Thanks for reading, happy shooting!

_Follow, Favorite, Like, Add, Insult, ContactJohnny Martyr _

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Mailing out the M6

Mailing out cameras and lenses for maintenance can a harrowing experience.

On one hand, I'm excited to get equipment back to 100% but on the other, I get so nervous about loss or damage in the mail. Or just plain bad news from the repairer. And then, of course, I can't keep using the camera while it's gone, which is a real issue for one that I use frequently.

A while back, I was fiddling with my rangefinders and noticed that my M6 TTL was giving slightly different close focus measurements than my other cameras. I mounted a few different lenses and focused on a few different objects at different distances, hoping that I was mistaken. But it didn't take long to verify that yes, the focus on the M6 had drifted.

I wasn't totally surprised because my toddler had accidently dropped the camera onto a concrete floor recently and I haven't had it serviced since Don Goldberg upgraded the viewfinder about 7 years ago. Probably many hundreds of rolls have been through it since. And there were other drops too!

Because business has been slow during the pandemic and mailing out gear stresses me out, I've just shot the M6 TTL stopped down and ignored the inaccuracy. But I recently I booked, what I expect to be an awesome wedding and certainly need one of my favorite cameras to document it.

Worried that it couldn't be serviced in time, I contacted Don Goldberg straight away and explained that I needed the camera returned in a few weeks so as to check it before my shoot.

I bit my fingernails for the four days it took to for the M6 to ship via insured USPS Priority service from Maryland to Wisconsin. Sure enough though, I mailed it Friday and I got the notification that Don received my camera last Monday. I considered writing to Don to verify that aliens didn't abduct him and sign for my Leica, which, they would naturally dismantle and destroy in some cartoonic Mars Attacks type insanity.

Then I figured, eh, don't bother the guy with my personal paranoia!

But suddenly, only hours after USPS marked the package as delivered, Don emailed me to tell me that the camera was done! WOW!

Don originally quoted me $65 to calibrate the rangefinder. He found that the high shutter speeds were also a little off so he adjusted them as well. He said that he re-lubed what he could. I take this to mean that he didn't re-lube the whole camera, just what he had access to while while doing the other work. Which is fine. All of that, on top of unexpectedly fast work and Don only added another $15 to my total! Needless to say, I tipped him for the effort.

I got the M6 back today, just a little more than a week since I mailed it out, and am pretty damn excited.

The viewfinder, framelines and patch are crisp and clean and appear to be accurate now. The shutter speed dial and advance feel noticeably smoother. It's hard to be sure, but I do think that 500 and 1000 sound ever so slightly tighter/quicker also. You can really feel a difference in a camera that's just been relubricated, like driving my car after a tune-up. It will be fun to go burn a roll of wide open test shots now!

It seems that my paranoid nightmares did not materialize. Honestly, I've had the most trouble with official Nikon repair shops than I have with small, one-man operations like DAG as he is famously nicknamed. If you are sitting on some Leica or rangefinder gear that needs to be sent out, check out my list of trusted repair shops. Don't make anymore excuses! Stop procrastinating!

It's all really amazing when you think about it.

We live in a culture where, at the first sign of trouble, most devices that have any age to them are simply replaced with something newer - the parts, effort or continued usefulness of the device deemed disproportionate to the benefits of an upgrade. And the stuff we buy is seldom an investment in and of itself, not made to be anything but trash tomorrow. We dispose of so much stuff and make so much work for ourselves learning to use new stuff and to pay for it both monetarily and environmentally. Yet film photographers are privileged enough to still be able to call on these amazing, professional repair folks like Mr. Goldberg to keep our old cameras working like new, serving our muscle memory and allowing us to forestall reinventing the wheel.

It's really pretty amazing. My clients and I will be safe in the knowledge that my 22 year old camera has a new lease on life (and a 6 month warranty on the work done). The Leica M6 remains relevant and capable. So do two small businesses. Good vibes all the way around.

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

_Follow, Favorite, Like, Add, Insult, ContactJohnny Martyr _

#filmphotography #leica #martyrmusings #35mmfilm #35mmphotography #adjust #camerarepair #cleanlubeandadjust #dag #dongoldberg #goodkarma #leicam6 #leicam6ttl #leicam6ttl85 #leicarepair #leicaservice #loveisaverb #lubricate #oldcamera #rangefinder #rangefinderadjustment #rangefindercalibration #relube #regularservice #service #workingphotographer

Mailing out the M6

Mailing out cameras and lenses for maintenance can a harrowing experience.

On one hand, I'm excited to get equipment back to 100% but on the other, I get so nervous about loss or damage in the mail. Or just plain bad news from the repairer. And then, of course, I can't keep using the camera while it's gone, which is a real issue for one that I use frequently.

A while back, I was fiddling with my rangefinders and noticed that my M6 TTL was giving slightly different close focus measurements than my other cameras. I mounted a few different lenses and focused on a few different objects at different distances, hoping that I was mistaken. But it didn't take long to verify that yes, the focus on the M6 had drifted.

I wasn't totally surprised because my toddler had accidently dropped the camera onto a concrete floor recently and I haven't had it serviced since Don Goldberg upgraded the viewfinder about 7 years ago. Probably many hundreds of rolls have been through it since. And there were other drops too!

Because business has been slow during the pandemic and mailing out gear stresses me out, I've just shot the M6 TTL stopped down and ignored the inaccuracy. But I recently I booked, what I expect to be an awesome wedding and certainly need one of my favorite cameras to document it.

Worried that it couldn't be serviced in time, I contacted Don Goldberg straight away and explained that I needed the camera returned in a few weeks so as to check it before my shoot.

I bit my fingernails for the four days it took to for the M6 to ship via insured USPS Priority service from Maryland to Wisconsin. Sure enough though, I mailed it Friday and I got the notification that Don received my camera last Monday. I considered writing to Don to verify that aliens didn't abduct him and sign for my Leica, which, they would naturally dismantle and destroy in some cartoonic Mars Attacks type insanity.

Then I figured, eh, don't bother the guy with my personal paranoia!

But suddenly, only hours after USPS marked the package as delivered, Don emailed me to tell me that the camera was done! WOW!

Don originally quoted me $65 to calibrate the rangefinder. He found that the high shutter speeds were also a little off so he adjusted them as well. He said that he re-lubed what he could. I take this to mean that he didn't re-lube the whole camera, just what he had access to while while doing the other work. Which is fine. All of that, on top of unexpectedly fast work and Don only added another $15 to my total! Needless to say, I tipped him for the effort.

I got the M6 back today, just a little more than a week since I mailed it out, and am pretty damn excited.

The viewfinder, framelines and patch are crisp and clean and appear to be accurate now. The shutter speed dial and advance feel noticeably smoother. It's hard to be sure, but I do think that 500 and 1000 sound ever so slightly tighter/quicker also. You can really feel a difference in a camera that's just been relubricated, like driving my car after a tune-up. It will be fun to go burn a roll of wide open test shots now!

It seems that my paranoid nightmares did not materialize. Honestly, I've had the most trouble with official Nikon repair shops than I have with small, one-man operations like DAG as he is famously nicknamed. If you are sitting on some Leica or rangefinder gear that needs to be sent out, check out my list of trusted repair shops. Don't make anymore excuses! Stop procrastinating!

It's all really amazing when you think about it.

We live in a culture where, at the first sign of trouble, most devices that have any age to them are simply replaced with something newer - the parts, effort or continued usefulness of the device deemed disproportionate to the benefits of an upgrade. And the stuff we buy is seldom an investment in and of itself, not made to be anything but trash tomorrow. We dispose of so much stuff and make so much work for ourselves learning to use new stuff and to pay for it both monetarily and environmentally. Yet film photographers are privileged enough to still be able to call on these amazing, professional repair folks like Mr. Goldberg to keep our old cameras working like new, serving our muscle memory and allowing us to forestall reinventing the wheel.

It's really pretty amazing. My clients and I will be safe in the knowledge that my 22 year old camera has a new lease on life (and a 6 month warranty on the work done). The Leica M6 remains relevant and capable. So do two small businesses. Good vibes all the way around.

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

_Follow, Favorite, Like, Add, Insult, ContactJohnny Martyr _

#filmphotography #leica #martyrmusings #35mmfilm #35mmphotography #adjust #camerarepair #cleanlubeandadjust #dag #dongoldberg #goodkarma #leicam6 #leicam6ttl #leicam6ttl85 #leicarepair #leicaservice #loveisaverb #lubricate #oldcamera #rangefinder #rangefinderadjustment #rangefindercalibration #relube #regularservice #service #workingphotographer

Mailing out the M6

Mailing out cameras and lenses for maintenance can a harrowing experience.

On one hand, I'm excited to get equipment back to 100% but on the other, I get so nervous about loss or damage in the mail. Or just plain bad news from the repairer. And then, of course, I can't keep using the camera while it's gone, which is a real issue for one that I use frequently.

A while back, I was fiddling with my rangefinders and noticed that my M6 TTL was giving slightly different close focus measurements than my other cameras. I mounted a few different lenses and focused on a few different objects at different distances, hoping that I was mistaken. But it didn't take long to verify that yes, the focus on the M6 had drifted.

I wasn't totally surprised because my toddler had accidently dropped the camera onto a concrete floor recently and I haven't had it serviced since Don Goldberg upgraded the viewfinder about 7 years ago. Probably many hundreds of rolls have been through it since. And there were other drops too!

Because business has been slow during the pandemic and mailing out gear stresses me out, I've just shot the M6 TTL stopped down and ignored the inaccuracy. But I recently I booked, what I expect to be an awesome wedding and certainly need one of my favorite cameras to document it.

Worried that it couldn't be serviced in time, I contacted Don Goldberg straight away and explained that I needed the camera returned in a few weeks so as to check it before my shoot.

I bit my fingernails for the four days it took to for the M6 to ship via insured USPS Priority service from Maryland to Wisconsin. Sure enough though, I mailed it Friday and I got the notification that Don received my camera last Monday. I considered writing to Don to verify that aliens didn't abduct him and sign for my Leica, which, they would naturally dismantle and destroy in some cartoonic Mars Attacks type insanity.

Then I figured, eh, don't bother the guy with my personal paranoia!

But suddenly, only hours after USPS marked the package as delivered, Don emailed me to tell me that the camera was done! WOW!

Don originally quoted me $65 to calibrate the rangefinder. He found that the high shutter speeds were also a little off so he adjusted them as well. He said that he re-lubed what he could. I take this to mean that he didn't re-lube the whole camera, just what he had access to while while doing the other work. Which is fine. All of that, on top of unexpectedly fast work and Don only added another $15 to my total! Needless to say, I tipped him for the effort.

I got the M6 back today, just a little more than a week since I mailed it out, and am pretty damn excited.

The viewfinder, framelines and patch are crisp and clean and appear to be accurate now. The shutter speed dial and advance feel noticeably smoother. It's hard to be sure, but I do think that 500 and 1000 sound ever so slightly tighter/quicker also. You can really feel a difference in a camera that's just been relubricated, like driving my car after a tune-up. It will be fun to go burn a roll of wide open test shots now!

It seems that my paranoid nightmares did not materialize. Honestly, I've had the most trouble with official Nikon repair shops than I have with small, one-man operations like DAG as he is famously nicknamed. If you are sitting on some Leica or rangefinder gear that needs to be sent out, check out my list of trusted repair shops. Don't make anymore excuses! Stop procrastinating!

It's all really amazing when you think about it.

We live in a culture where, at the first sign of trouble, most devices that have any age to them are simply replaced with something newer - the parts, effort or continued usefulness of the device deemed disproportionate to the benefits of an upgrade. And the stuff we buy is seldom an investment in and of itself, not made to be anything but trash tomorrow. We dispose of so much stuff and make so much work for ourselves learning to use new stuff and to pay for it both monetarily and environmentally. Yet film photographers are privileged enough to still be able to call on these amazing, professional repair folks like Mr. Goldberg to keep our old cameras working like new, serving our muscle memory and allowing us to forestall reinventing the wheel.

It's really pretty amazing. My clients and I will be safe in the knowledge that my 22 year old camera has a new lease on life (and a 6 month warranty on the work done). The Leica M6 remains relevant and capable. So do two small businesses. Good vibes all the way around.

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

_Follow, Favorite, Like, Add, Insult, ContactJohnny Martyr _

#filmphotography #leica #martyrmusings #35mmfilm #35mmphotography #adjust #camerarepair #cleanlubeandadjust #dag #dongoldberg #goodkarma #leicam6 #leicam6ttl #leicam6ttl85 #leicarepair #leicaservice #loveisaverb #lubricate #oldcamera #rangefinder #rangefinderadjustment #rangefindercalibration #relube #regularservice #service #workingphotographer

Three Common Issues with the Nikon FM2n

If you currently own or are interesting in buying a Nikon FM2n, you'll want to know about the three common issues that I've found with these cameras.

As previously noted, I'm a big fan of the Nikon FM2n. I've owned five and have whittled down to just two black FM2n's. I've been shooting on them for over a decade and have put thousands of rolls through them; from weddings, concerts, political rallies and just out drinking with friends. While my income and art depend on these cameras, I'll be the first to tell you, they're not perfect!

My beat old F2sb and even my cheap old Pentax K1000's are more mechanically and electronically dependable despite CLA's all around. That being said, I've only had three, very solvable, but critical issues with the FM2's that I've owned.

TITTANIUM SHUTTER

The first issue I want to talk about is with the FM2 and early FM2n's. Ironically, it's what they're famous for; the titanium shutter.

While I've heard great praise for Nikon's early and long time adoption/implementation of light weight, durable titanium shutter curtains, the FM2 seems to have missed the memo.

Two of the first FM2's I owned were models that featured that fabled honeycomb shutter and they failed with little use in the early 2010's. For one, the FM2, since I advocate buying from reputable retailers instead of rando's on eBay, I returned it to whence it came and there was no real harm done. For the other, an FM2n in near mint condition when purchased, I went with a full shutter replacement since its warranty was up. Set the old girl back to zero and all. But what kind of shutter did my early FM2n receive? Aluminum (as pictured above.) And it's worked beautifully ever since.

From what I understand, all FM2's and some early FM2n's have the titanium shutter. The titanium shutter is strikingly unique looking and easy to spot when opening the film door. I don't have a photo of the titanium honeycomb shutter because I got rid of the ones I had! But yeah, it has a honeycomb pattern stamped in it. Looks like bumblebees made it!

Newer FM2n's and any FM2 with failed titanium shutters in the last, oh, decade or so, have been bestowed with aluminum shutters as I've read. Why? Because even Nikon realised that titanium, in the case of this particular body, for reasons beyond my knowledge or interest, just didn't work. So if you own a working FM2 or FM2n that contains titanium, be careful and consider an aluminum shuttered back-up or upgrade of your existing camera pre-emptively while the service is still available (is it still available?). I have owned three aluminum shutter FM2n's and haven't had any issues with their less glamorous innards. My advice on the topic is not even to buy FM2's or FM2n's with titanium shutters.

APERTURE INDEXING TAB

The second issue first arose right before a wedding. Amazingly Lev at BP-ES repaired my FM2n in just two days, in time for my shoot. Anyway, the Auto Indexing Tab, which is located on the lens mount of the camera, started to stick.

This gives bad meter readings and promotes confusion during a fast paced shoot. And since then, I've seen the sticking AI tab occur on three FM2n's I've owned, over time and with use, after full CLA's.

Remove your lens and find that little black plastic rectangle that sticks off of the ring around the lens mount. That's the AI Tab; the feature that replaced the earlier, more beautiful, less elegant and reliable crab-claw-and-pin rig that you find on pre-AI bodies and lenses.

I once disassembled it and found that under the lens mount of the FM2 is a string that attaches to the inner part of that AI tab and the string is tensioned by a spring. As you close your lens down, the string pulls the tab along the circumference of the lens mount to follow the corresponding AI Tab on your lens. The spring keeps the two tabs in exact contact, thus feeding the aperture position to the meter. It's a very basic mechanism that isn't THAT much more clever than the crab claw rig, but it's a hell of a lot more compact and modern looking.

On the FM/FE, the AI Tab and ring were made of metal. But on the FM2 and FE2, they are plastic. The problem with plastic, besides being ugly, is that it binds. So the mechanism seems to need more lubrication than its first iteration on the FM. I have lubricated the AI mechanism myself a couple times by rubbing graphite into the parts that touch. However, it's perhaps best to pay a friendly repair tech to show you how to do it rather than hazard this oneself. I just like to understand what I'm paying people to do!

Anyway, when the AI Tab no longer springs back and forth rapidly, the responsiveness of your light meter is affected. Sometimes, the meter simply responds to aperture changes a little slower and it's difficult to even notice the problem but it will only worsen.

You can learn about the relationship of the AI tabs by switching on the FM2's light meter with the lens removed, your hand out of the path of the mirrorbox and running the AI tab back and forth with your finger. You'll see that the meter reading changes even though you have not changed the SS or the amount of light entering the camera.

LIGHT METER POWER

Finally, the third problem happened to me while I was writing my last blog about NEW products that you can still buy for film Nikons. The light meter on one of my FM2n's just abruptly stopped responding. I pulled the advance lever to the standby position, pressed my shutter release half way and bam! No light meter.

I tried connecting one of my MD-12 motordrives and pressing it's shutter release half way. But still, no dice. What this told me is that the problem was not the on/off switch but either the meter display or the power to the meter. I did a little reading and very quickly found that a number of people had this problem and that most of the time it had been resolved by simple work done under the bottom plate.

I removed the bottom plate by unscrewing the three tiny screws that hold it in place. There were no signs of corrosion anywhere, everything looked very clean as it should be. Using my multi-meter, I tested the blue wire which comes off the battery box and to the motordrive terminals. I found that power was not getting from one end of the short, half inch or less wire, to the other end. At least not consistently. Different places on the battery box that I touched while holding the other side to the end of the wire, resulted in current or no current.

So I simply removed the battery cover and, using alcohol because DeOxit wasn't available, I cleaned the battery cover as well as the threads to the cover and box. I got ALOT of black oily material out of those threads. I put the batteries back in, screwed on the cover and tested the meter again. It was ALIVE!

When I get a chance, I'll apply some DeOxit all around the battery box. I also GENTLY pulled up on the negative contact prong at the bottom of the battery box to ensure a tight fit of the classic A76/LR44 batteries. I re-installed the bottom plate and then checked more carefully with a lens and different settings. All good. This isn't an issue I've had with any other camera, though I have always as a first response to electronics issues, performed this procedure. Yet I get the impression that this happens with some frequency to the FM2n. Maybe it has to do with loading all that graphite into the lens mount! Who knows?

So my FM2n's soldier on! Yes, there are obviously more complicated things that can go wrong with the FM2n or any classic camera and of course replacing the light seals is critical too! But like I said, these three seem most common with and unique to this model, occurring in spite of necessary, regular maintenance. Also, luckily, these three issues are easily addressed by any competent repair tech (though shutter replacement, if necessary, is somewhat costly).

Hopefully you find my experience useful in getting a dusty forgotten FM2n working again or for when one of these issues occur on the FM2n that you're currently running.

Have you come across any other problems with the FM2n? Got a solution? Let me know in the comments section.

Thanks for reading and happy shooting!

_Follow, Favorite, Like, Add, Insult, ContactJohnny Martyr _

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